


Only a moment, only a lifetime

by Polpetta



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, F/M, How Do I Tag, My First AO3 Post, POV Bellamy Blake, POV Clarke Griffin, Post-Season/Series 04, Sad, i think, posts4e13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 12:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13007718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polpetta/pseuds/Polpetta
Summary: “Bellamy.. if you can hear me.. if you’re alive-” her heart skips a beat everytime she says these words “it’s been seven hundred and thirty days since Praimfaya”Everyday she’s like a broken record which stubbornly keeps repeating hoping that someone will listen, and sometimes she asks herself if it’s really worth it.But today it’s been seven hundred and thirty days since Praimfaya.Seven hundred and thirty days since they left behind the bunker in Polis and Earth itself.Seven hundred and thirty days since Clarke is dead.





	Only a moment, only a lifetime

 

 

 

Only a moment, only a lifetime

 

_Stood at the cold face_  
_Stood with our backs to the sun_  
_I can remember being nothing but fearless and young_  
_We've become echoes, but echoes, they fade away_  
_[…]_  
_The devil's on your shoulder_  
_The strangers in your head_  
_As if you don't remember_  
_As if you can forget_  
_It's only been a moment_  
_It's only been a lifetime_  
_But tonight you're a stranger_  
_Some silhouette_  
_(Aquilo – Silhouette)_

  
It’s always the same spot, the one where Clarke is sitting. Well, it’s always been the same since the air has become breathable and it doesn’t feel like fire that burns her lungs and every single cell of her skin anymore. Now the sky as well isn’t consumed by Praimfaya’s flames, now it’s blue like the first time they could admire it from the Earth. That same sky that has been their home for ages.  
“Here we go again” she says after setting the little dish antenna on the ground as bringing the radio to her lips.  
It’s the same radio she has been using every day, at first in Becca’s lab – when her face was devastated from radiations, breathing required huge effort and moving was necessary and inconceivably painful – and then in the open in that little spot of green, on that same fallen trunk. She never separates from it, not even during the night, and even when she sleeps she keeps an ear out for every word.. syllable.. sound.. crackling.. anything. By now the radio has almost become an extension of her body, and it’s definitely become the anchor of her head and her heart.  
“Bellamy.. if you can hear me.. if you’re alive-” her heart skips a beat everytime she says these words “it’s been seven hundred and thirty days since Praimfaya”  
Everyday she’s like a broken record which stubbornly keeps repeating hoping that someone will listen, and sometimes she asks herself if it’s really worth it. She doesn’t know anything. Did they manage to go in? Was she able to send the current or was it all pointless? And if they came through were they able to start the algae farm, the airing system, and the water?  
In these cases fear overwhelms her, she feels alone in a dead world and surrounded by the shadows of the people she’s lost. She almost sees them wandering like ghosts, dark and silent profiles ready to torment her with their only presence.  
But Bellamy isn’t among them.  
His silhouette isn’t there on Earth, he’s in space. Alive.  
This is the thought that saves her while she feels panic growing and breaths shorten, paradoxically suffocating her. It’s his hand, the warm and reassuring voice in her head, the deep obsidian gaze, to pull her out of the bloody ocean that submerges her. The thought of him keeps her from drowning into herself and her actions, keeps her from losing into Wanheda.  
With her there only are the memories she can’t and doesn’t want to forget: the spot where she saw the rocket leave; the place where they last saw each other – when she felt that was a goodbye and the words died in her throat, replaced by a simple “Hurry” -; the corner of laboratory where they _truly_ talked for the last time, the moment when she told him to use his head and not let himself be carried by that magnificent heart, for everyone’s sake.  
_“I got you for that”_  
It’s almost like she can hear the sound of his voice touching every intimate string of her heart and invading her mind. She’s afraid of forgetting his comforting voice, how he pronounced her name, the way he said this sentence, his words that could instill courage in anyone against any obstacle, whether it’s the grounders ready to slaughter what remained of the hundred or it’s the planet itself.  
She feels like she can still feel his body’s warmth when he hugged her, while she gave in bursting into tears.. he had been keeping her from breaking down in every sense since long before she was even aware of it. The arms tightly wrapped around her shoulders, his skin’s scent, the fingers on her neck and in her hair grabbing onto her while helping her not falling apart in a thousand pieces, an unexpected shiver running down her spine and filling her with warmth up to the fingers’ tip.. everything is a ghost-like sensation on her skin.  
Every time she relives the memory it feels like an eternity, the span of a whole lifetime in a single moment lasted too short and infinitely long at the same time. She wishes she could feel his warmth again, not only through fleeting and misleading memories, feel shielded from her ghosts again, protected from the demons that torment both of them but that they can face together.  
Feel herself in that grasp one more time. Feel like she’s home again.  
Surviving is her only task. No more politics, plotting, wars… just simple survival like the first days on the ground: eat and find somewhere to sleep. The latter isn’t complicated, the laboratory has some rooms which, adding a few pieces of furniture from Becca’s mansion, became more comfortable she could ever imagine. She could have stayed in the house straight away, but that place is filled with memories of her friends and the man they killed trying to replicate nightblood. She remembers entering the first floor bedroom; just looking at that immaculate bed made her feel inadequate, _dirty_ , once again. The sight of her in the mirror, just like the first time, reminded her how she would never be able to cleanse herself from all the blood staining her soul, doesn’t matter how many showers; she would never earn again the innocence her appearance may suggest. It made her conscious of her loneliness and how much she’d want to explore that house with all of her friends, with Bellamy.  
As for the food it’s a little thorny situation. The mansion’s supplies were all loaded in the ship, and every life form too weak to endure the radiations was wiped out. So there weren’t many options, but thanks to a merciless rationing of the few resources left in the lab she managed to survive enough time for nature to recover. There’s just a small livable section left, A.L.I.E.’s 4%.  
She counted the days down, every morning in Becca’s lab she adds a new notch up on a wall. That’s how she keeps track, how she visually realizes the amount of time-expired, unfortunately still too little comparing to the remaining days until the radiation’s wave comes to an end.  
Sometimes it’s hard to resist the loneliness; it feels like being back to isolation on the Ark. An oppression takes over her, screams of despair stuck in her throat together with a knot of fear. Is she really the last person on that planet? How can she survive five years? Will she ever see them again?  
And it’s exactly because she’s alone the reason why she lets herself cry. She doesn’t need pretending to be strong anymore, she doesn’t need to strengthen her armor and conceal her emotions. She doesn’t have to pretend to be fine.  
She screams until the throat is sore and her voice is gone; then she punches and kicks the laboratory’s walls until her hands bleed. She falls exhausted on her knees and only in that moment she allows herself to take the radio to hold onto it. She doesn’t press the transmitting button until she’s sure she’s too tired to start screaming again.  
“Bellamy…” her voice is shaky and hoarse, and even though she cries again just saying his name mitigates the painful grip around her heart. She doesn’t really know what to say, so she just keeps listening, curling up on the floor with the radio clutched to her chest.  
She made sketches of everyone, using sheets of paper she found laying around and some pieces of charcoal she’d kept with her for who knows how long. She’d left them beside the wall with the notches, in order to remember what’s the meaning of all this.  
Murphy together with Emori, in one of those rare moments when she saw them peaceful in A.L.I.E.’s mansion; Monty with eyes full of life next to Harper; Raven wearing a radiant smile that hadn’t appeared on her lips for too long; and then her mother with Kane, and Octavia, beautiful in her warrior fierceness.  
Bellamy… not just once. Bellamy when they landed on Earth, Bellamy overwhelmed by guilt for his actions when he opened up to her for the first time, Bellamy who holds her hand while she steels herself for taking the Flame, Bellamy who writes her name on the list, Bellamy who smiles in the rover while forgiving her… dozens and dozens of sketches and portraits trying to capture every facet of Bellamy Blake.  
His eyes, his hands, his broad shoulders.. she drew every detail. Maybe for fear that her memory could leave something out, up to the point she might forget it, maybe to feel a little bit less lonely.  
She misses everyone. She misses Bellamy.  
“Please if you can hear me come in, the radio is always on and I’m always here” she starts talking again.  
She inspects the sky, looking for who knows what, receiving nothing back.  
“Bellamy” she wants to say so many things but can’t just find the words. She clings to his name while silent tears roll down her cheeks.  
Every night, before going to sleep, she goes out of the bunker and just to the light of the Moon – still red because of the radioactive ashes in the air – she sits not far on the soft soil, among tiny bushes of straw-colored grass slowly growing in that area.  
She doesn’t light a fire, she just holds the radio fixed on her hip and looks to the night sky. Earth may have faced the second apocalypse, but destruction could nothing against the beauty of the stars that light up the celestial sphere. The lack of sources of light allows observing tens of thousands of stars, set in the night like brilliant gems, and getting lost in the tranquility they never really had, neither on Earth nor on the Ark.  
_The Ark._  
Her purpose every night is to find the light of the Ring, finding what looks like a particularly bright moving star. She never does, maybe it’s because of the ashes, maybe because just the Ring’s light is much more weaker than the one of the entire Ark. So this becomes an opportunity to identify the constellations – and to repress the pang of disappointment and fear - .  
Perseus, Andromeda, Hercules…  
Each shape tells stories about heroes and damsels, titanic adventures and passionate love stories. Observing the stars makes her feel closer to them, to _him_. She smiles ruefully at the thought of Bellamy’s passion for mythology and knowledge, a small detail probably not everyone noticed, but she did while grasping at little things.  
_“I know who Oppenheimer is”_  
_“Trojan horse. Good plan”_  
Even though her lower lip is slowly shaking, almost as matching her affected and short breaths, and a single tear is rolling down her cheek, the smile on her lips inadvertently grows bigger.  
It’s filled with fondness for that boy who grew too fast, who was both father and mother to his sister sacrificing everything and anything for her, who took responsibility with her for the lives of ninety eight scared kids, who thinks he’s a monster although he’s anything but that. It’s filled with nostalgia.  
If he was there he would definitely tease her with one of his jokes.  
“Princesses don’t cry, Clarke. What kind of Princess are you?” And then she would answer with a half smile and a teary laughter. If he was there she would ask him to tell her the myths of every constellation they could recognize, so she would lose herself in his voice’s tone and in his excitement for those stories. Now the shaky smile has become a painful grimace.  
Her hand imperceptibly grips tighter around the radio.  
She has to believe she isn’t waiting for someone who will never come back, that there’s still hope.  
She can’t accept everything is in vain, that each word she says is just a sound reverberating in the atmosphere no one will ever hear; that Bellamy’s name isn’t just an echo slowly fading away in the darkness between Sky and Earth.  
“I miss you..” the only thing she manages to get past the knot in her throat.  
_I don’t want to forget you, I don’t want to forget any of you. Don’t become a stranger. Please let me hear your voice, make me remember how it feels like living a moment lasting a lifetime._  
_Hug me, talk to me, look at me._  
“But I still have hope, _I’m still breathing_ ”

 

 

 

 

_My love, my love_  
_Where've you gone?_  
_I turned around and now_  
_I'm alone_  
_Will I ever understand it?_  
_Will I make it to the other side?_  
_I almost died_  
_The day I lost you_  
_I'll keep breathing_  
_Til my heart stops_  
_(Til my heart stops - Too Far Moon)_

   
Fire is the only source of light.  
It’s a moonless night, however full of stars above them. The only audible sounds are fire’s low crackling and their breaths.  
He lowers his eyes on her, more beautiful than the surrounding nature. She’s looking at him too, her ocean eyes staring directly into his. Fire creates a play of shadows on her blonde hair and on her relaxed features, her lips holding steady into a peaceful smile.  
On instinct he hugs her and it’s like in this moment the whole universe is enclosed in his arms. He senses every part of her: the intoxicating scent while he nuzzles his face in the curve of her neck, the soft hair through his fingers, her cheek’s warmth on his neck, where he could bet she can feel his heart’s frantic beating; their bodies pressed one against the other.  
He feels like he’s home, like truly breathing in years almost as he has been living underwater for all that time, like the pain of losing her prevented his body from properly functioning and he only survived thanks to – or because of – his shattered heart’s unceasing beating.  
He wakes bolt upright drenching in a sweat bath, his arms reaching out and cheeks marked by some dry tears that must have streamed down while he was sleeping. For a moment he’s confused and lost, he looks for her certain he would find her by his side, her face lit by the campfire. It’s only when his eyes adapt to the dim light and roam on the Ark’s metal walls and he hears the ventilation system’s constant buzzing that he remembers the truth, just to be crushed by it.  
This kind of dreams is the worst.  
Sometimes he dreams her death. He starts with seeing the faces of every single person he’s lost and the ones that are dead because of him, Gina, Jasper, Lincoln, most of the hundred.. their faces vivid and real like it’s an hallucination from Jobi nuts; and then he hears that single word he knows will haunt him for the rest of his life with guilt and regret. _“Hurry”_  
He sees every gruesome detail of hot Praimfaya hitting and consuming her, while he’s on the other side of a window where he knows he’ll be safe from devastation and he can’t open it, so he has no choice but watch helpless and throw himself against the glass screaming and screaming as hard as he can, crying like a kid.  
But dreams like this are good because waking up is a relief, he doesn’t have to look to what he thinks happened.  
When there’s neither death nor destruction instead, but just the night sky and her ethereal and smiling features it becomes a sweet torture his mind inflicts on him. Waking up means breaking into pieces, it means a poisonous stab to the heart and pain that seems to increase with every damned beat; each pulse is suffering spreading into his veins, a dull echo in his wrists and neck that means nothing. It’s just living’s passivity.  
He seats on the cold mattress, wiping away the tears while trying to regain control of himself. He promised her he would have done it, he promised he would use his head and wouldn’t let himself be carried away by emotions.  
But it doesn’t mean they aren’t there, upsetting wildly both his heart and his head out of everyone’s sight in the darkness of the night.  
But today it’s been seven hundred and thirty days since Praimfaya.  
Seven hundred and thirty days since they left behind the bunker in Polis and Earth itself.  
Seven hundred and thirty days since Clarke is dead.  
To remember they decided that every year for this occasion they will let go of all of the Ark’s problems, they won’t bother with the inefficient heating or the airing system barely producing enough oxygen to keep them alive. No, for at least twelve continuous hours their only occupation will be to remember and drink as much as possible to cloud their minds from sadness.  
The most natural place to do this is the room where they daily eat their – scarce – meals. It’s not Arkadia’s mess hall, probably there’s nothing left of that, but they have the bare minimum, a big table and some chairs. There’s also a little skylight, through which they can see Earth, they usually ignore.  
A small ceremony was established: they sit on the floor with their eyes on the tiny window, each of them with their own glass and Monty’s moonshine passing between them.  
No one wants to say anything, but it doesn’t feel right to _them_ because “The dead must be remembered and honored” like Echo said. So they decided to use some Trigedasleng sentences, thinking about Lincoln, Roan, Luna and anyone from the ground who was their friend.  
_Hofli graun en folau na gon won. Medo en keryon, kriken sonraun en branon. Kom graun, oso na groun op… Kom folau, oso na gyon op._  
_May the Earth and ash become one. Body and spirit, old life and new. From the Earth, we will grow… From the ashes, we will rise._  
Harper suggested this, it was something Niylah said during burials at Arkadia and it seemed fitting. No one had any objection.  
Saying their names… it’s still too soon, for all of them. However this doesn’t keep their minds from digging into the memories, good and bad ones, and relive them knowing that the people they loved so much are gone.  
So today he doesn’t blame himself for the tears or the muffled sobs that are overwhelming him. Today he can allow himself to fall apart, although just a little, in those four metal walls’ darkness without breaking his promise and insult _her_ memory.  
Even though his legs feel like jelly, he stands up and without taking his jacket or putting his shoes on he leaves the room with a specific destination in mind. He has goose bumps where chilly air brushes on his naked arms at each step, but he almost doesn’t feel it. He only stops when he gets there and grabs the bottle.  
Brusquely he hits his back on the wall opposite the window and slides down until he sits, leaning his right arm on the raised knee. He fiddles with the bottle between his fingers, reading the label with scorn.  
“The Baton – To be opened on Earth”  
He wishes he could laugh at the irony. The Baton, _a heavy scepter_ , a drink he never got to share.  
_“Have one for me”_  
Prompted by the crystal clear voice in his memories he opens the bottle and takes a sip of the bitter liquid contained, greeting with gratitude the burning.  
He has to thank Monty. It’s incredible how that guy managed to produce moonshine from algae’s waste. He didn’t ask, still his friend always lets him find something in this bottle, as through this little gesture he wants him to know he’s not alone.  
Despite the boy suffers infinitely for the loss of Jasper, despite every one of them suffers Bellamy always feels pitying gazes on himself, from Harper’s clear ones to Raven or Murphy’s subtle ones. He doesn’t want their pity, to be seen like a beaten puppy. He doesn’t need those eyes that seem to say “You just need to let her go”; he wants to yell at them, to pour out the anger he feels when he catches their glances. But, once again her voice makes him come to his senses.  
_“You’ve got such a big heart Bellamy; people follow you, you inspire them because of this”_ a light touch on his chest, exactly on that – damned – heart _“But the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this too”_ her fingers on his temple are a phantom he still feels.  
He wants to scream at her, at the word that took her away from him, at himself who left her behind and killed her. What can that promise matter if she’s not there?  
He swallows another generous sip and lets his eyes drift out of the window, now overwhelmed by anguish. Earth isn’t burning anymore, finally it doesn’t seem like a giant ball of fire; Praimfaya took away the typical blue only leaving behind red of destruction, and radiations that keep on consuming the planet. It’s not possible she survived, this is the truth, and the awareness of this causes a strong pain in his chest. Even when three years from now they’ll be able to go back and everything will seem nothing but an endless dream, she won’t be there. He will never get to see her again, never caress with his eyes her minute and frail yet so intense figure anymore; he’ll never be able to tell her all the things he would have wanted, express the feelings that crush him out loud while looking into her eyes. He’ll never be able to brush her features with his fingers and never make his her rosy lips from which came out many words now seared inside him, into his soul.  
He left her behind, abandoned her to her destiny on that dying planet. He saved himself and not her. It’s his fault, he killed her. He should have stayed and let the others leave without him. He should have waited for her in the lab, die with her. Instead he ran away like a coward. Maybe as soon as the rocket took off she arrived there; maybe she saw the door closing on her and felt betrayed and left out from the only chance of salvation. The only opportunity left he of all people stole from her.  
_Together._  
Still there he is, safe in space without her by his side to observe from above what they thought could be their home. He wrote her name on the list so she would live, then why didn’t he do all he could to keep that promise? Why didn’t he save her?  
_“Thank you, for keeping me alive”_  
He failed.  
He stands up feeling the urgent need to move, as if he could suppress this suffering simply changing position. The truth is everywhere he goes everything always leads to her.  
He found her room almost a year ago. Or rather, he found the cell where she lived in isolation for a year. The Ark’s Ring may function, but there’re incessant fixings to do and always new problems; that’s why Raven sent him looking for any mechanical and/or electronic useful components while she and Monty thought of a way to solve the malfunctions. He searched room by room so that he could draw up a mental list of every resource they had left: blankets, mattresses.. anything helpful. It was the last one left and then he would have searched every single room in the Ring. He entered using the key card Monty gave him, after changing it into a passepartout with the mechanic’s help, and his eyes quickly sorted through the presence of a cot next to the wall and a small cabinet on the other side of the room. With two wide strides he reached to the single piece of furniture, hoping that maybe there was something inside.  
Empty. He closed the cabinet heavily sighing, they could have used even a punctured shirt. Straightening himself he was nearly making his way towards the exit when he was stopped by something on the wall above the cot. He slowly moved closer, almost cagily, still used to have to be ready for surprise attacks and lethal traps after all that time, even though at some logical level he was conscious he was relatively safe. It was a drawing of a waterfall, enclosed by thick trees ending in a peaceful river. It was masterfully drawn and, despite fictional, it brought him back to the ground: it was like he could see again the bright green trees surrounding the dropship, the freezing river that satisfied their thirst and the majestic mountains in the distance.  
All of sudden _the_ realization struck him, leaving him bewildered and gasping for breath as he stared wide eyed at the wall. As burned he took a step back and, at the same time, he turned around – trying to ignore the tremors starting to spread in his body, the knot in his throat that kept air from passing and his fast heartbeat so strong he could feel it in his fingertips – frantically scanning every surface in that room. And then he saw them, dozens and dozens of drawings: small flowers, imaginary woods, animals sketched remembering illustrations from schoolbooks. Overcome he lowered his gaze to the floor, and even there he found the drawing of a starry night through trees’ branches.  
He decided to leave, to _run_ out of that place.  
He slammed the door without looking back, and only in that moment his body allowed him loosening the knot and taking the breath he had been denied for all that time. Still with shaking hands and a bit dizzy he headed to the control room in order to deliver the few components he found. Probably his expression spoke for itself, maybe even more after Murphy asked him if he saw a ghost and obtained a punch in the face as an answer.  
No one entered in that room. He himself vowed he would never go there again, yet some nights he found himself opening the door and stealthily sneaking in. Even now he’s silently walking down the hallway headed for that room and taking the bottle with him.  
He goes in closing the door behind him. He knows the following day Raven will come looking for him there when she won’t find him in his room, she already found him sleeping on that floor several times. He sits down next to the cot leaning against the wall, watching the drawings on the floor before him.  
He would have wanted to see her drawing more often on Earth, express fully this gift of her while having real subjects at her disposal. He would have loved seeing her in a peaceful moment focused on a piece of paper with some charcoal in her hand, hell he would have searched for stuff for her in the bunkers scattered in the forest. He wishes he’d seen her happier and carefree.  
But it would have never been possible for someone as selfless as her: she wanted to keep everyone safe, she was ready to sacrifice anything for her people’s good. He always knew she would never back out, he had been aware of that since their first clash; she was very brave for a girl so young, devoted to the hundred’s wellbeing up to the point of putting aside her own. She took care of each of them and even of him who had been so disdainful towards her, blinded by the grudge of a hard life and because of those unfair laws that allowed his sister to be locked away and floated his mother; she represented those privileged who decided to take everything from him, and yet she was nothing like them.  
He would have wanted to relieve her by the bundles she forced on herself, spare her from feeling crushed by guilt, protect her.  
A bitter laugh escapes his lips. He couldn’t shield his sister, his responsibility, the one he devoted to and has been his entire life since he was six, how could he ever think he could protect her?  
However she didn’t need to be saved; she didn’t need any knight in shining armor – or maybe it’s more fitting a perfectly functioning automatic rifle – because she was the tale’s heroine. She was the Princess who doesn’t wait defenseless in the tower, who grabs a sword and faces the monster in person; the Princess who saves the knight himself.  
She saved him from certain death, from guilt, from himself. He would have wanted to return the favor at least once.  
The Princess deserved the happy ending the useless knight is living.  
While he drinks the last sip he realizes, almost with horror, he’s thinking about her in the past tense. The awareness brings him on the verge of panic.  
He doesn’t want to forget her. Maybe he’ll never be able to, but what if one day he wakes up and doesn’t remember the exact color of her eyes? Or if he doesn’t remember the way her lips curled up in a half smile for a bad joke he made, making his heart explode into a frantic pace? What if he forgets everything about her?  
He doesn’t notice he’s nearly starting to hyperventilate, his eyes clouded by tears and his fists painfully clenched to his sides.  
He doesn’t want to. He can’t.  
He has to remember her. He must remember everyone who didn’t make it, he doesn’t have the right to sleep easy at night after everything he did. He has not been deserving peaceful nights since he shot the Chancellor, not since he trashed Raven’s radio and let three hundred and twenty innocent people die due to his cowardice. And above all not since he left behind to die the only person who saw light inside him, under all those layers of blood and darkness.  
He leans his head back bumping into the wall’s cold metal, letting a salty drop roll down from his closed eyes.  
He’ll keep living bearing the burden of all this, he’ll dedicate himself to the others like she would have done.  
He’ll move forward, taking every agonizing breath until his heart stops.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> This is actually a translation. English isn't my first language, I wrote the original in italian and I hope I didn't make many mistakes/typos and it's not too bad. Even if it was hard I really had fun, so please let me know what you think and if you have some advice for me.  
> See you in the comments if you want!


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